


Our Way to Recovery

by carmillasleatherpants (courtneyarnelle)



Series: Fill Me In [12]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: AU, F/F, Sexual Content, post-accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courtneyarnelle/pseuds/carmillasleatherpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While you don’t exactly blame Laura’s father for having… Concerns about his daughter’s safety after her accident. His constant calls to check up on her are annoying. Especially when he calls at four in the morning and ruins your peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Way to Recovery

**When you’d been** **helping** Laura prop up her left foot (now bound in a heavy cast after her car had been hit by an intoxicated driver) onto a stack of pillows, she’d fisted her hands in the collar of your college crewneck, pulled you between her legs and tugged you down to kiss her.

Naturally she’d missed. Her lips wet and eager against your chin rather than their original goal. But Laura adjusted quickly to press her lips against yours. The cast on her left wrist is held uselessly to her chest by a sling and it brushes roughly against your chest when you lean into her.

You’re completely aware of her intentions and why she’d tried to catch you off guard. The past three weeks had been filled with chaste kisses and gentle prodding, but you hadn’t tried to have sex with her. Despite Laura’s insistence that she was fine and that she had _needs_ and she’d _definitely_ return the favor when she got her casts off, you didn’t want to risk hurting her more just so you could touch her.

When you pull away and start to move from on top of her while muttering your usual speech about how you can’t do this to her right now, she doesn’t let you finish. She pulls you back to her and her tongue slides into your mouth and glides against yours. Her good hand tangles in your hair keeping you against her.

You try to resist. You really do. But you really miss touching her. _God_ do you miss touching her. You feel Laura’s relief when you relax into her and kiss her back like you mean it. Laura’s lips move gently against yours, her tongue teasingly grazing your lower lip. She’s aware of your hesitance and she kisses you gently as to not give you a reason to pull away again.

You find yourself completely absorbed in her. In her familiar taste against your lips and you have to force yourself to pull away because for a moment you’d forgotten to breathe. Then your mouth starts running without your permission, “Laura, I—”

“Carmilla I’m _fine._ Can you just—” Her good hand finds your left and brings it to her chest. You squeeze on instinct and she lets out a short breath that makes your heart beat a little faster. “You don’t need to worry about hurting me. I can handle it.”

“Okay.” You breathe. Relief spreads on Laura’s face and you feel bad for your hesitance. It wasn’t like you didn’t _want_ to have sex with her. Between sarcasm and Laura herself, _sex_ with Laura was in your top favorite things in your life. You’d just been afraid of being the reason she was in pain. So you’d held off. But instead of voicing all of this to her right now, you go back to kissing her.

Taking off her clothes proves to be an annoying task. You know maneuvering around her casts will be annoying so rather than taking it piece by piece, you undress her all at once. Thankfully Laura doesn’t wear much but sweatpants and t-shirts since she’s been working from home. You help her pull her arm from her sling and you set it down on the nightstand. Her shirt and bra come next, and her sweatpants end up bunched around her cast. It’s a nice surprise to find she’s not wearing any underwear.

The lack of seductiveness to that task is forgotten once you press your lips to her neck. You close your eyes and relish in the feeling of her soft skin beneath your lips and her good hand lands on your waist. Her fingers slide up your side to the back of your neck, then they tangle in your hair and keep your mouth pressed against her skin.

You can’t help your smile and you press a kiss just below her ear before you whisper, “I missed this.”

“Me too.” She replies and you suck her earlobe into your mouth. Laura’s hand moves from your hair to clutch at your shoulder. Your move one of your hands to her trace along the rise of her collarbone, then down to cup the rise of her chest. She grabs at the shirt on your shoulders and sighs when you squeeze her chest again.

You move to press an open mouthed kiss between her breasts before you suck her left nipple into your mouth. Laura throws her head back and lets out a loud moan. You keep your eyes on her because really she was so, so beautiful. In the daylight she was a different kind of beautiful. She was your personal bit of sunshine. But here behind closed doors, with her eyes clenched shut and body tense as you touched her, she was a completely different kind of gorgeous that made your stomach twist in want.

And after restraining yourself for so long, you wanted to watch every single reaction she had to your touch.

You circle your tongue around her nipple then twist it gently between your fingers. You’re impressed Laura has kept her casted hand above her head up until now and she does now even though you catch the twitch of her arm when you suck on the skin below her nipple. You move your mouth to the opposite one while you move your hand down to brush your thumb against the rise of her hip.

“How does that feel?” You ask and she bites her lip at the sound of your voice.

“Amazing.” Her breath hitches as you repeat the same circling motion of your tongue on the hardened nub. “Absolutely amazing.”

You press a wet kiss between her breasts and squeeze them in your hands again. Then you kiss down her stomach, and over the dip of her bellybutton. You tongue the mole right underneath it that had decidedly become your favorite. When your breath ghosts between her thighs, she brings her casted hand down and grips your hair with both hands.

Instead of giving her what she wants, you suck on the sensitive skin on her inner thigh and her left leg twitches against your cheek like she’s going to move it. You stop immediately and press a hand to her knee. Laura lets out a disappointed huff.

“Don’t move this leg.” You order, not wanting her to aggravate her leg more than she already does on a daily basis. Your other hand flattens against her stomach and you feel her shiver at the serious tone in your voice.

“Okay.” She nods.

“I’m serious.”

“I’m won’t move my leg.” She tells you.

You keep your hand against her left knee just in case and you return to kissing her inner thigh. Your thumb finds her clit and starts to rub small circles into the swollen bundle of nerves. Laura’s hips cant gently with each swipe and you tongue the red mark you’ve worked into her skin. Then you drag your tongue between her slick folds. Laura’s good leg wraps around your shoulders and her heel digs into your shoulder blade.

“ _God_ Carmilla. Please don’t stop _._ ” She breathes. And you’re happy to comply.

* * *

 

 **After you’ve helped Laura** up to shower and gotten redressed in your pajamas, (her in a tank-top and shorts and you in just an oversized t-shirt) you re-prop her foot. Laura’s head is warm against your shoulder while she snores. You’d put her sling back on so her arm is pressed against her chest, but the other is thrown over your stomach and fisted in a death grip in your shirt.

Considering it was Friday and you had to go in for classes in a few hours, you should probably be sleeping. But the peaceful atmosphere of the warmth of your sleeping girlfriend pressed against you and the quiet of the dead of night was far better.

Then her phone rings. You wince and check to make sure it hadn’t woken up Laura. She’s still deep asleep in your arms. Figures. You pick up her phone from where it’s charging on the nightstand and see it’s her father. You can’t help but roll your eyes.

While you don’t exactly blame Laura’s father for having… Concerns about his daughter’s safety after her accident. His constant calls to check up on her are annoying. Especially when he calls at four in the morning and ruins your peace. Laura doesn’t give any indication that she’s disturbed by her phone going off, so you answer her phone as per usual whenever one of these late night calls happened.

“Mr. Hollis.” You say. You’re more than aware that he hates when you call him that but it didn’t feel right for you to call him anything else.

“Carmilla.” He greets, there’s a pause before he continues. “How is she?”

“Sleeping.” Laura shifts slightly in her sleep and you think you might have woken her up. Instead she snuggles further into you and her hand grabs at your chest which makes your eyes widen. You move her hand back to your stomach where it fists back in your shirt and she sighs. “You know you worrying isn’t going to make her heal any faster. It’s only been three weeks.”

“I know it’s just—She’s my little girl.”

“I understand. Are you still coming over for dinner on Sunday again?” A small part of you hopes he’ll say no because you still feel really awkward around him. But at the same time, you really like how Laura’s face lights up when he knocks on the door. Even if she complained about how overprotective he was, Laura really loved her dad.

“If the two of you will have me. I don’t want to invade on any… rituals the two of you might have or anything.”

“No, you’re not intruding. Promise.” You shift your arm a bit feeling it starting to fall asleep which makes Laura tuck herself further into your side. You slide a hand up and down her arm absentmindedly. “Laura likes when you visit even if she won’t admit it.”

“Really?” His voice is so hopeful that your heart clenches a little bit in your chest. You wonder what it must be like in his shoes. To have disapproved of the girl your daughter was dating because you wanted the best for her. You can admit that you weren’t exactly a pillar of great influence at eighteen. You’re not sure if you’d have enjoyed Laura being around you either. But to watch your daughter date this girl anyway. And end up in love with her and living together in what you’d consider a healthy relationship.

You can only imagine how conflicted you might be after not trusting her to make her own decisions when she was seventeen. But you can understand his point of view. You can’t really blame him for worrying about her.

“Really.” You stay silent for a moment. Not hearing any sign of response, you decide to end the call. “So I’ll see you on Sunday?”

“I—Yeah. Goodnight, Carmilla.”

“Night Mr. Hollis.” You place Laura’s phone back on the night stand and rest your arm over Laura’s where it’s draped across your stomach. And you focus on her steady breathing to lull you back to sleep.

* * *

 

 **“So you’re making steak** and potatoes?” Laura leans against the counter beside you while you look at the food you’d just bought from the grocery store. Really she’s not supposed to be putting weight on her foot. But with her wrist also in a cast she couldn’t really use crutches. Laura hated being carted around in a wheelchair when she could _‘walk on her own and ignore the pain.’_

You don’t care enough to force her to let you push her around in her wheelchair. If she wanted to make her recovery even longer by being stubborn, so be it. Although that didn’t stop you from teasing her about it.

“Yes. Your father is coming over so I’m not going to indulge in your sugary diet this week.” As if to spite you, she reaches up into one of the cabinets and pulls out a package of cookies and stuffs one into her mouth. You roll your eyes and preheat the oven. “I know you’re trying to cripple yourself but are you going to help me or not?”

“I’m eating.” Laura takes a bit of another cookie and you glare at her.

“If you’re not going to help go sit down or something.” You turn back to the ingredients laid out on the counter and try to ignore Laura’s arms wrapping around your waist. She’s still got the package of cookies in her hands. “What?”

“Don’t be mad babe.”

“I’m not. I’m just—”

“You always get so worked up when my dad comes over.” Her free hand starts to wander under your shirt and you let her press her fingers into your hip bone, choosing to ignore her cast digging roughly into your stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you nervous?”

“No.” You know you answered that too quickly and gave yourself away, but you ignore the embarrassment heating your cheeks. You carefully move her arms from around you, as not to aggravate her injuries, to find the broiling pan for the steak and a baking sheet and aluminum foil for the potatoes.

“Carm.” You take a breath and turn to her. She’s leaning back against the adjacent counter to the one you’re standing by and she licks her lips. “You don’t have to be nervous around him. It’s not like he still hates you.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“ _Nothing_.” You start to wash off the potatoes and Laura nudges you with her hip.

“Carm talk to me.” You run a hand through your hair with a sigh. You really needed to woman the hell up around Laura. You can see her smiling at you giving in and you curse your weakness when it comes to her.

“Your dad is still nervous around me and that makes me nervous.” You finally admit.

“There you go. Why don’t you just explain to him that there’s no hard feelings.”

“No thank you. I don’t want to make things awkward.”

“Fine.” A beat passes and Laura hobbles back over to the cabinet and returns with a couple more potatoes and joins you in washing them off before you put them into the aluminum foil to cook them.

* * *

 

 **Laura makes herself useful** in getting dinner ready for her father. You manage to get her to sit down after twenty minutes on her feet. She tried to play off her pain but her movements slowed and you reminded her she had a story to work on. That made her abandon your side and limp to the kitchen table where her papers were still spread out and her laptop was still on.

You finish prepping everything and putting it in the oven. Then you bring in some of the things you’re working on for your third year of Law School to the kitchen table and sit on the opposite side from Laura. The table is small enough that sometimes Laura’s twitchy feet tap against yours beneath it, but large enough that you don’t get in each other’s way.

At this point in your schooling, you’re sure you’ll graduate just fine. You’ve been really working on getting a job and you’ve settled on taking the Bar Exam in February and your MPRE in November. Leaving you with a little over a month left to study for your MPRE. You’d been on the fence about exactly which area of law you’d go into but ultimately, after discussing it with a few professors and other students, you’d decided to go into Criminal Law because of the impact Lawyers with a philosophical background were doing in the area.

Needless to say, you were busy. Your separate schedules don’t put a strain on your relationship as it had in college. You’re more mature now. You both are. A little time apart isn’t the end of the world. And at the end of the day, you could come home and wrap yourself up in her.

You think it a little funny that you ended up looking into Criminal Justice while Laura was trying her hand in investigative journalism. You know that if you were to work a case, Laura wouldn’t press you for inside information and risk your job even if she’s supposed to do everything she could for a story. You would probably have to keep your relationship on the down-low.

It would get hard, but it was nothing you couldn’t handle.

She was worth it.

* * *

 

 **The timer goes off** and you stand to take the food out of oven while Laura checks her phone. Then she starts to organize her scattered papers and put them away.

“My dad said he’ll be here soon.” She says while you set the pans on top of the oven. You pull off your oven mitts and tuck them under your arm.

“Good timing.” You return to the table and start picking up your things. Laura starts to move to get up, but you stop her. “I know I usually let you do what you want, but sit down. I’ll take care of your things. Your dad would kill me if he knew I was letting you run around on a broken leg.”

Laura looks like she might protest, but after assessing your seriousness she slouches back into the chair with a huff. You move both your things from the kitchen table and then set it. Laura plays with her phone while you do so. You finally hear a knock on the door and while your hands on a cloth before you go to answer it.

You spend a short moment lingering on what a _mom_ you feel like, before you open the door. Laura’s father is holding a pot in his hands with what you assume is desert. You ask just to make conversation.

“Good evening, Mr. Hollis. What’s in the pot?”

“Just a little bit of desert I whipped up. Something I remember Laura liking as a kid.” You move aside to let him in and close the door while he walks into the kitchen.

“Hi, Dad.” Laura greets and he sets his pot on a counter before moving to the table to press a kiss to her head.

“Hey. Staying off your feet?” Laura gives you a look that screams guilty for a moment before she smiles at him and nods.

“Of course.” He gives her a look of disbelief.

“You can serve yourself.” You interrupt before he can interrogate her about how she’s taking care of herself. You walk back into the kitchen area and cross your arms over your chest. Fergie chooses now to wander into the kitchen and he lets out a loud mewl of complaint at being ignored until now. You crouch down and press a hand to his head. “Everything’s ready.”

“Great! Laura, do you want me to get you a plate?” You move to fill Fergie’s food bowl and at that question you turn your gaze back to Laura.

“I can—” She starts to protest, then she meets your eye and you shake your head. It only takes a second for the short mental conversation to happen. She rolls her eyes and gives in to your request to let her dad do it for her and to calm her independent spirit just for tonight. “Yeah. That would be nice. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

And dinner goes fine. Laura sits in the middle with you and her father at opposite ends of the table like the past couple times he’s visited. You think it’s getting a little less awkward. Laura’s father compliments your cooking and you thank him. The conversation isn’t as stilted as it had been before tonight. It’s filled with small talk and Laura gushes about the story she was finishing up.

Laura’s dad even asks how your degree is going which is almost a shock. But after eight years, it really was about time the two of you finally warmed up to each other.

He leaves a few hours later with some leftovers and Laura kisses his cheek as he heads towards the door. You give him a firm handshake that makes him smile since you’ve been avoiding physical contact with him until now.

* * *

 

 **“Thank you.” Laura says** a little later when you’re sitting on the couch with her. She’s got some show you know nothing about playing but you don’t complain because she’s pressed _right_ against your side. It’s distracting enough to keep you from commenting on the logic of what the concept of the show appears to be.

“For what?”

“For _trying_.”

“Yeah well, I figured it would make you happy.”

“You’re such a big softie.” You give her an offended look at that which makes her giggle and press a kiss to the underside of your jaw. “You must really love me.”

“As if you weren’t already aware.”

“Softie.” She repeats and you roll your eyes. Her lips move along your jawline to the rise of your cheekbone. Then she presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth and you look down at her. “Say it.”

“What exactly?”

“That you love me.”

“I love you, cupcake.” You squeeze your arm around her waist and she kisses your chin.

“I love you too.” You finally press your lips against her and she kisses you sweetly. You don’t think you could ever tire of how Laura’s lips felt against yours. And you’re so, so thankful for everything that you have and for the girl in your arms.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working now on revamping Family and then finishing up this series with that. Do me a favor and don't read the next part because a lot of it will be different once I'm done.


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